How is violent revolution even possible in 2017?

No he was about giving workers power to oppress the bourgeosie and prepare for a direct attack against a highly developed state that does everything it can to obscure the possibility of revolution.

you are pretentious and an idiot and it's showing, just stop for your own sake and read a book

Why u german marxism?

Marx never developed a good theory of the state, never explained how class struggle would occur. This isnt a history class, update your marxism

It's damn near impossible in Amerikkka, or any sufficiently advanced bourgeois state for that matter today. Here is a path that could work though.

Infiltrate right wing and rural groups (these guys have guns) and create hostility between them and the government, ramp it up during times of economic stress, try to recreate a civil war type of situation. Engage in revolutionary defeatism and sabotage the bourgeois state.

In this moment of chaos the possibility of something greater emerges

And how would he do that?

class consciousness under developed civil society, one of the necessarythings for revolution. his social theory really builds on what lenin could not have yet known from the Russian experience, and gramsci added something relevant to a western marxism. of course others have expanded further, and sadly some have forgotten the goal of this class consciousness was to create a situation where a 'direct assault' on the state would be successful.

personally I'm more althusserian and lack the 'optimism of the will' gramsci somehow found even inside his jail cell.

I should add. it is still up for debate. does Class consciousness exist in the superstructure or in the base? Is it somethign that can be taught from the top down, or must it be realized on the 'shop floor'

there seems to be a big split in marxism on this that is undecided.

inb4 someone posts that comic with Marx and the kid killing the Marxist professor

Bringing communism out through violent means is what gave it the negative stigma that it has. We should be trying to create it through peaceful means without the gulags in order to obtain popular support.

The French and American revolutions were violent overthrows of the feudal order. Do you think the Jacobins should've infiltrated noble courts? I think you don't realize how dumb this is

Tolstoy bullshit

Marx's greatest strength was inventing social science by creating social theory from material reality (when he put Hegel back on his feet). The lesson to be learned is you have to keep learning from the material reality you are in.

I've never been paid a cent for marxism, and it is for the worker if he has enough energy after work, and the professors be damned.

This seems even more utopistic than a violent revolution.

an example for you gramsci hating people, he would probably point out that 'non-violence' is an idea (idealism) that reproduces capitalism, and his war of position would exist to challenge that idea - to eventually get more people on the side of violence.

This guy gets it. Whether it was the october revolution or the current revolution in northern syria, it's always chaos and instability that leads to these opportunities. The defining factor though is having the right groups at the time that can take advantage of it

the defining factor is having the military on the side of the revolution. (or formal soldiers ready to drop out of the formal military). There is no other way.

That's not really the case though. Observe cuba and rojava as case studies demonstrating the opposite

Revolutionary social democracy is the only way comrades.

Cuba and Rojava are not trying to wage war on US soil. These comparisons are meaningless for us, meaningful for third world countries.

You have the wrong logo

Well I don't have any expectations of revolution in burgerland happening anytime soon. I do think that you don't necessarily need the military on your side, you just need to have them unwilling and unable to fight competently. Not too hard to pull off, drafts tend to do that all by themselves.

I do think things are slowly destabilizing. Nearly everyone I talk to on both sides of the political spectrum seem to be pissed off at the government and the system in general. However, the material conditions just aren't here yet for a revolution. We just need another recession and I feel people will start taking to the streets

We're just gonna have to wait until capitalism collapses on its own weight to rebuilt civilization based on socialist organization.

We've seen people take to the streets during the last crisis, but it didn't culminate into anything useful. I hate to sound like a tankie, but we do need a "vanguard" of sorts. I don't necessarily mean a party, but a new generation of thinkers who can speak to the current circumstances and how to organize would go a long way. The best we have at the moment is RDW and groups like Democracy Now, but it's not like they're new to the scene (or anything more then "demsocs"). Maotists have proven themselves too sectarian to really coalesce into a cohesive movement and the IWW is still too small and decentralized to really lead any movement. As someone who's a communalist (growing more sympathetic towards inclusive democracy though) I would like to say the institute of social ecology would be able to but that would be bullshit. Bookchin's contributions to leftist theory isn't enough to erase his sectarianism and political mishaps. I miss Fred Hampton tbh

Agreed, a lot of protest and rallies do absolutely fuck all in the end of the day. I was more referencing riots and civil unrest but the average prole is too content to risk going to jail over political purposes. Even then, if there is a riot cops have been trained to put that shit down. There needs to be a massive civilian support too, not just a bunch of leftists, pissed off libs, and BLM activists shouting fuck the police at cops in full riot gear.
Sounds more Leninist then anything, but I do agree we need leaders who actually speak to the working class as a whole to unite them against bourgeois oppression. We seem to be lacking actual figureheads and revolutionaries on the left due to left wing and labor talk being drowned out in the US. The vanguard would also need to form a strong alliance to fend off reactionaries and capitalist infiltration because that will become an issue once the vanguard achieves any form of prominence. Plus the thinkers would probably be targets of character assassination by the bourgeois media and actual assassination from the state possibly stunting any hopes of a centralized vanguard party. Having a central authority works to mobilize people faster but it is also easier to infiltrate which is why most leftist groups now like the demsuccsUSA, redneck revolt, BLM etc. etc. are all decentralized groups with high chapter autonomy. The problem that comes from this is that it is harder to organize large groups and you end up having protests that consist of a bunch of small sects mixed in with some sympathetic workers who heard about the event on social media (which is also monitored by the police). This basically means that street revolution can be crushed even in a decentralized way.
In real life I do see leftists try to get over sectarianism but every group I've been in that has failed has failed due to personality differences. I get that we won't totally get over ideological bullshit but I do wish people on the left would put this emotional and personal baggage to the side so it wouldn't interfere but we live in emotionally charged times where social alienation has hit some people really hard. I want to see a united left but a part of me thinks it will not happen anytime soon. We need a coherent goal and message, something that people can relate to and mobilize around.

I think Bakunin might have had it right when he suggested an "invisible dictatorship". Having leaders unbeknownst to the powers that be, influencing things purely by merit of ideas rather then by cults of personality. I'm having trouble thinking of any other way of subverting the issues we've both raised.

I think this is where the internet is our biggest and best asset.

Well yeah, you have to bring the masses to your side, but the point is, action is indispensable. You could have 60%, 70% or God knows how much more of your populace fully behind you in a liberal democracy, but you still wouldn't have the mandate to seize ye olde means of production. At some point, you'll have to get your hands dirty.

Then again, I re-read your posts and it doesn't seem you were actually denying that so sorry if I bothered you for no reason.

Yeah but having 60% or 70% of the population on your side is valuable in liberal democracy, the other parties look like fools for trying to oppose your popular legislation. Once you do have hegemony in a liberal democracy you can dismantle it and it's game over for the bouj.

Why do we love this guy once again?

Or try entrism in those groups and turn them into Bookchin fags. Most rednecks would probably like Bookchin if they knew who he was.

yes the masses are there, then the direct assault on the state and labor is possible. Otherwise you become an insurrectionist or a literal terrorist and there is zero bang for your buck with that kind of action. gramsci is trying to formulate an anti-dote to vanguardism, since with a developed well armed state vanguardism is impossible (arguably even in times of great crises to do rule by ideology primarily)

*on the state and capital

I'm afraid this is the old reform vs revolution debate. I personally don't think you can really do it because, even if you do get most of the people behind you, Porky would fire the first shot.

That's sort of what we want though. As soon as the facade of peaceful exchange of power that liberal democracy provides is torn down it's open season on porky.

As for the question of whether revolution is possible in the first world because the overwhelming military power of the state you need to remember it's the workers that helped build all that up in the first place. As soon as they stop supporting that system it becomes unsustainable. The revolution would have to be fought threw guerilla warfare but eventually the workers would win. The problem as I see it is letting capitalism reach a level of full automation. If the state can produce all of the war machines they need with out human labor then no mater how bad it gets I don't see how a revolution can win.

The other problem I see is the geopolitical problem that the collapse of the US would cause. The massive power vacuum would probably launch world war three.

You naive niggers need to literally read any history book. When liberal democracy fails to defend private property you just get a military dictatorship and muh will of the people has never prevented that.

well he's a faggot because capitalism is violence (exploitation)

repressive right wing regime after fall of capitalist oligarchy leads to socialist revolution, it's elementary dear watson. both centrism and right has to utterly trip on it's own retarded legs for leftism to gain popularity, given how spooked western society is right now

Look how that turned out.

it turned out exceedingly well, half of germany was ML state for 50 years after ze heiling dude

Thanks to foreign occupation, not socialist revolution.

it was liberation, not occupation

My point is Hitler's regime didn't lead the German people to a socialist revolution.

i don't see the difference as long as porky ends up in gulag

The difference is that the fact that a socialist state happened to get a hold of eastern Germany was pure chance and in no way a result of letting Hitler do his thing.

a necessary result*

Mass insurrection makes the conditions necessary for all those things impossible you pantywaist. The American military is only barely holding onto Afghanistan. If they had to fight their own countrymen, who have access to education, weapons, technology, and equipment far exceeding that of the Afghans, I doubt that they'd do much better for a number of reasons.

"Revolution is impossible" is one of the most blatant indicators of a brainlet.

it was a direct result because fascist governments are unstable economically and can't hold on to power for long - combine that with staunch anti-communism, and you have a direct antagonism ready to explode in the regime's putrid jaw while propelling forward socialist popular movements

Violent revolution by the mobbed masses are a thing of the past. The Arab Spring set the standard for the new political revolution. ISIS is setting the standard for the new rebel regime. As weapons increase in power, the only way to win a war as an underdog is with subversion and violence through diffused agents.

You're about 60 years late on the dossier sweetie.

Do you stupid communists really think the world is built against you?

It's built FOR your stupid fucking revolution. Our banking system is set up like a pyramid scheme.

Every year the taxes get higher and higher to support the currency the banks lend our treasury, until eventually people are no longer able to pay, and when that happens, your stupid revolution happens.

Like clockwork.

I hope everyone on this board starves to death in the revolution for not knowing history.

It's going to be a bad time and you stupid fucks are here wishing for it. I hope you get it. Hard.

Nah m8. These people are just relics, they haven't been fed the latest dossier, like i said .
The way of the revolution has changed and these people are still clueless about it, more than 60 years after the fact.

Anything is possible

Yeah read a book dumbass.

Define communism and/or what you in belive.

Please do it so i have something to shoot at.
I sincerely hate you fucks for not being able to understand you are just pawns in the capitalist/communist sham that is run by Israel.

Fuck your dumbass revolution of the proletarian masses, who are obviously inept an unable to recognize their own bondage. You are using them as bodies to achieve your goals. Fucking idiots.

Calm down lad. Most people on this board don't even know what relative and absolute surplus value is. They aren't malicious, they are only misled.

Shut up anglos. Your day is near.

you disgust me

Hurry up fag, i'm waiting for you cucks to come out of the woodwork so you can be removed.

It doesn't matter if they are jews or not. You are, in the current moment of history, playing right into the bourgeouis's pocket.
Just think about it, why is every major tech company strangely tolerant of marxism in general?

marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm
Concise answers to basic questions.

Just because they want nothing to do with explicit reactionaries doesn't mean that they are "marxist." You guys are acting like SJWs with your obsession with symbolic gestures and culture.

...

Occams razer tells me its because smart people tend to lean left and you define anyone who is left of you a marxist.

I use the term "marxism" in such broad context because writing "political position that derives from marxism" is too long and i thought my meaning would had been clear.
Also because both socialism and communism can have vastly different meanings from what i'm talking about. And probably from what you know about, ever heard of reactionary socialism?

If all smart people leaned left (or to a marxist derivate political position, if you want to be through with it), how would the bourgeouis ever stand a chance?

I didn't say all, I said they tend to. But you can be left leaning and not a marxist. You're the sort of person who thinks Bernie Sanders is a socialist even though he is straight up capitalist lapdog.
You're asking me to believe a conspiracy when it is much easier to just assume you're a nutcase. Basically, where da proofs?

Sure.
Yeah, there are liberals, ancaps and a few other groups who are left-leaning and not marxist.
He is undeniably a socialist. However, he is not a marxist in the traditional sense. (see why i used that other definition?) Doesn't that mean his politics aren't derived from marxist thought, which they are, but his solutions to the "problem" stray way too much from marx for he to be considered a proper marxist, in the traditional sense. But then, if you are a marxist in the traditional sense in this day and age you are seriously naive or has some sort of mental problem. Read OP for reasons why. People asked themselves this question almost 100 years ago.
Isn't it funny? Are you going to pretend this board was largely in support of sanders to the point that you even had a wordfilter for a meme which revolved around saying "Sanders was the solution" last year?
I asked for you to completely ignore anything related to jews for now and simply reflect on your ideology. (ever heard of this marxian concept?)

I think it probably has more to do with you being a brainlet that doesn't know what marxism is or what was "derived" from it.

Show me where Bernie Sanders has shown that he is in favor of workers owning the means of production.
WHERE
IS
THE
PROOFS?
You're the one making claims here. Show me instead of deflecting behind re-defining a bunch of words.

Oh you mean the ironic memes revolving around the most popular socdem in American politics in the last 50 years back when this board only consisted of 500 posters? That TOTALLY means that we endorse him dumbass.

Aaand here you come with your meme definition of socialism, as always. The "workers owning the means of production" thing is related to marxian communism, not nescessairly with socialism.
Show me one mention of a non-marxist(an derivatives) socialist advocating for the workers owning the means of production.
Or don't, it doesn't matter.
In politics, sometimes you have to claim that you belive in Y, even though you belive in X, to eventually create a social condition where X would be possible to be achieved. It's called "pragmatism". Heck, even marx advocated this in some form or another, although in a very different way.
According to you (board in general, not the indivicual) the best example of this was Lenin, who imposed a "dictatorship of the proletariat" which wasnt the original concept of said form of goverment, but oh well where the goverment, ie. bureaucrat class owned the means of production to make it so that in the future the workers could own them directly, achieving communism. Well, that's what leninists say, that is.
Sanders follows a similar, but more "modern" approach to society. If you had read non-meme marxist authorsor any at all you'd know what i'm talking about.
I'm not redefining anything. I'm explaining the hermeneutics of one word in a situation where the explicit meaning of said word isnt enough.

I'm not autistic enough to the point to not notice irony when it exists.

Yep. Let me guess, tankie? Heck, even nowadays, every other week, there is a thread of tankies vs anarchists vs sodems in general and you usually get blasted by socdems. Why? Because they have a better answer to the question in the OP.

One misstep and theyll start voting anyone into power, like in Greece. Sure, every politician is bought anyway, but its still a chance.

Look, its painfully obvious you don't know anything about leftist theory or political theory in general. You keep redefining "Marxist" and "Socialist" to mean things that it doesn't. You should really take your flag to heart and read a fucking book. In your first post you even admitted that you used Marxist in some fucked up way to mean "anyone left of me. this..general..group of people..here"

Oh really? Can you point out one claim that i made that is wrong?

Do you have some reading comprehension problem or something? I am purposefully defining what i mean with "marxism" every time i use that term to avoid misunderstandings.
Again, where did i make any claim which is factually wrong?
I'm well entertained with Durkheim, Jellinek (sigh) and Hume right now.

Well, thank you for answering my other question. You DEFINITELY have some reading comprehension problem. I used marxism as a general term to define any political position which derives from marxist (not even marxian) thought.
There are many people who are to the left of me which ARE NOT marxists. Well, since i'm quite far to the right that isnt really much to that. Let's rather say that There are many people to the left of the center which are not marxists, in the way i just defined
Happy now?

How is it in Israel's interest to promote communism? Aren't communists allies with BDS, who Israel hates? Or is BDS set up by Israel too as some kind of false flag?

I don't buy that Israel is some kind of all-powerful global puppet master. They're just one power among many capitalist powers, and they actually wouldn't be shit if America wasn't helping them selling them F16s to blow up Palestinians.

What? There are plenty of non-marxist socialist currents who advocate worker's control. Mutualists, Anarcho-Communists, Anarcho-Syndicalists, Utopian Socialists, Guild Socialists and so on… Marx on the other hand was specificially critical of the concept of worker's control on it's own as being good enough to call socialism. It was one of his main critiques of Proudhon after all. Cooperativisation of the economy while retaining generalized commodity production is not socialism in the Marxian view.

IF eastern germany was so great why was it so hard to leave to western germany?

There's an inherent problem with universal surveillance in that, even with the best algorithms, someone still has to investigate and sift through all the metadata on you, and with hundreds millions of people, and a shitload of people whom the state considers a "possible threat" like Alex Jones/Oathkeeper types along with every other affiliation deemed "radical" someone is bound to fall through the cracks, and that someone just might be a Lenin. By the time they start the investigation, the revolution is under way and resources are scarce. Just gotta hope you're not a priority target, at least until the right moment.

You realize Marx and Lincoln were pen pals right?

God poltards are fucking stupid.

kill yourself you worthless brainlet

"Hey working class, join my revolutionary party! Don't you hate your boss? Wouldn't you rather get nuked than work for minimum wage?"

Take away food and water country-wide for a few weeks.

Okay but can we still have gulags after we win?

Jon McNaughton is amazing